Panacea
by celinae
Summary: There is no cure to growing up. AU [Eventually Kakasaku.]
1. Pyrite

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is owned by Kishimoto, and I do not claim rights to it, nor am I making any money off of writing this fanfic.

**A/N**: This is going to be a series of oneshots, not actually a "fic." Obviously, it's all going to be related to Sakura, but I don't really see an end to it, just some ideas I might explore along a sort of timeline. I took the liberty of making up the names of Sakura's parents, btw.

Thanks goes to Ducky for thinking up the title for this chapter. XD

* * *

**Pyrite: To Keep the Goal in Sight**

She had been watching the latest exploits of the Kamanagi family, another lurid soap opera. In soap operas, the characters' lives were complex, but you knew that they'd have a happy ending. Even if Kamanagi Akiko got pregnant after a drunk one night stand, and ended up having to marry the badboy who was the father of her child, you knew she'd fall in love with him, and he'd reform himself and become a good, dependable working husband. Even if he once robbed a store, and got into constant fights, he'd change himself, for her.

They were always loved, in soap operas. No matter how many sides the romantic entanglements had, in the end they had a happy ending: they were loved.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but Sakura's voice woke her.

"Mom!! Moom!!" Sakura said, tugging on Chieko's sleeve. She was lying down on the sofa, her eyes closed, and her head covered in rollers. Snorting as she abruptly woke, Chieko looked about her to see what happened and noticed her anxious pink-headed daughter next to her.

"Yes, sweetie?" Chieko said wearily, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. Now that Sakura was home, Chieko had to give her some food, and she still had ironing to do, and she had forgotten to get some fresh vegetables for dinner. She had been planning to make green beans and chicken, but it looked like the grocery store might not have any more beans of the kind she liked, considering how long she overslept…

"—and Linda was being really mean, and pulled my hair, but Ino stopped her and told her she was as ugly as a frog--"

The Yamanaka were decent people, and Chieko had no qualms about letting their daughter play with Sakura, especially since she knew that Sakura was, in a way, being protected by her. Still, she desperately hoped that Sakura wouldn't start wearing those strange bandages, or become obsessed like boys like she knew Ino was.

She didn't want her daughter to make the same mistakes she did, Chieko thought, looking at Sakura. She had potential for being very beautiful later on, but Chieko knew that beauty could lure the wrong men. She knew, because she had been the same.

"Mom!?" Chieko tensed, startled out of her reverie. "Yes?"

"Can we have udon for dinner today?" Sakura asked, her eyes bright with hope.

_I don't want to see that light go away_

"Of course," Chieko said, rising, her mind racing on whether she could still get to the grocer in time to get some udon ready before Jin came, and if she had put the placemats in the laundry.

"Come on, did you wash your hands yet?" she said, smiling down at Sakura, pushing her gently in the direction of the bathroom.

XXX

For her daughter's future, Chieko decided to cut the cable so she could give her piano lessons. It had taken a long time to convince her husband, since he was attached to sports channels more than she was to her soap operas. Or maybe he didn't consider piano lessons that big of a deal, but eventually Chieko nagged and wore him down.

"Fine, fine!"

"It's just-"

"Goddamn it, shut-up! I'll call the cable provider tomorrow, okay?! Are you happy, now?"

She smiled weakly in return, looking at his stormy face. It was a hard-won victory, and she knew it had only made things even tenser between them, since Jin hated being pushed around by his wife, even if it was only for this one thing. Their love had long dried away, and she was finding it difficult to let him slip into the bed beside her, nowadays.

It was for her daughter, she remembered, and steeled herself.

* * *

The goal, though Chieko never told Jin, was to get Sakura good enough at piano so that she'd have a chance at Konoha Academy for Talented Students. It was a famous, selective school not too far from their neighborhood, and she remembered wanting to go there when she was young. The problem was, to be considered for Konoha, you had to have a talent; you had to be the best at what you did. 

Chieko didn't have a talent—the most she ever had was a gift for words, but it was a small one. Though she sent an application, she never heard from them. It was a old, and slightly bitter wound. So she wanted her daughter to go there, partly to prove that she wasn't worthless, that "_ha,_ _I raised this beautiful amazing girl who is so much like me, who is the furthest thing from a fool there is, and she will have the choices I never had_."

So Sakura was entrusted for two hours every Sunday to a wizened old woman, who lived ten blocks away and kept framed newspaper clippings on the walls next to her baby grand. Chieko's daughter always emerged chastised, subdued by her teacher's caustic reprimanding over her form, over the tiny amount of time she practiced, over the state of her lamentable sight-reading…

It was good for her, Chieko thought, trying not to dwell on how she was forced to carefully balance the family's finances to pay for the lessons.

It was worth it, Chieko reminded herself, trying to keep the goal in sight even as her daughter raged against her guidance.


	2. Mirage

**Disclaimer:** See first chapter.

I guess this what happens when I try to do homework after a week of doing absolutely nothing, and after reading several chapters of The Bell Jar. I don't think it establishes Sakura's character very well, but I still like it. XD

Of course, this wasn't supposed to be a conventional story, anyway…

* * *

**Mirage: To Remember Why, And Erase All Doubt**

**.  
**

She feels cold and bone-thin. It's a strange feeling; it makes her think that her skin is slowly loosing life and she's becoming a corpse, or maybe she's floating on an endless sea and dying. In these moments the piano is a heavy weight pulling her, and even though she grabs with her weak fingers, only weaker sound comes out.

Long ago, when she was eight, she cried in this spot. She hated practicing then, still does now, but it's a dull ache. She doesn't argue or throw tantrums anymore when she sees her mother's numb, stern face. It was useless, _this_ is useless. She doesn't understand exactly what playing the piano is supposed to prove, but apparently her mother thinks it is important.

She didn't understand at all until she saw Itachi Uchiha perform on television. She had passed by the living room, thinking that her mother was watching some daytime trash, and then a sound caught her. She had never heard a sound that sickly sweet, like the death throes of a fevered, already extinct bird. It sounded like sleeplessness, and weightlessness, and Sakura wanted to claw the familiar ache out of her skin.

Caught, she stood in the doorway, staring into the darkened room, past her mother's dim outline, into the TV screen. It was blurry, but she could still see that someone was playing on the violin, their body arching into the small instrument, their hands dancing over the strings, almost caressing. Sakura felt like she was intruding on this stranger's privacy even though he didn't notice, his eyes shut tight and long dark hair brushing over his eyebrows.

The almost endless sound pierced through her and screamed through her blood vessels, trickling into her heart. She felt it pumped into her, this stranger's essence, like acid and salt corroding her thoughts. It distorted the world around her, and she knew pain and impossible beauty, and dreams in the curve of melody. Sakura swayed unsteadily, and reached out to grab the doorframe before Chieko knew she was there.

She saw the emotions pass on his closed face like waves rocking the prow of a boat, and wanted to close her eyes, but the sound of his violin remained.

When his bow stilled, he unfolded and opened his eyes. His pupils seemed red at first, but that was an illusion that sunk quickly into his tired, lined face. Against her misgivings, she stayed to hear the interview with the show's host, a buxom blond woman in a red suit.

In a smooth, low voice he spoke of his younger brother, of his parents who died in a plane crash, of the years of practicing. And then, Sakura understood, if only a little bit, why her mother wanted her to go to Konoha Academy.

This violin prodigy went there too.

Stilling, Sakura brings her palms up to her face, and stares at the lines etched there. Her fingers are long, slender, and pale. Piano hands.

She places her fingers back on the yellowing keys and continues playing.


	3. Acid

**Disclaimah**: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Naruto would hook up with Gaara and Sakura would be making babies with Kakashi, and Sasuke would kill himself and be like—"Ack! I forgot to try the tiramisu pocky before I faded from this horrible world!!" And then Konohamaru would get into this weird shotacon relationship with Tsunade. And Sakura's first child would be named after Jiraiya (she had been asleep when Kakashi signed the papers…).

**A/N**: The only thing I can say to defend myself is that sesame candy is incredibly addicting. I've some eaten nearly the entire package already, even though I bought it two days ago.. I apologize for Ino-OOCness. I'm not good at writing any character besides Sakura, to tell the truth. And I thought I was quoting from the manga, but I'm probably wrong. It's that scene, anyway, so you know what I mean, I guess. XD;

* * *

**Acid (Rain): Imitations always taste worse.**

She had always respected her teachers. It wasn't just that she was a goody-two-shoes, but also that she knew what hell teachers had as jobs. She recalled too vividly days from preschool where the Haruma brothers would drive Ms. Wallace to tears, and considering that Sakura had such a problem with bullying and stage fright herself, she couldn't imagine being a teacher.

So, being paid to make a fool of yourself in front of people everyday in the process of force-feeding knowledge to bratty kids… was not Sakura's piece of pocky.

Some would say that Sakura's profound respect for her teachers went too far. She never talked in class, or responded to notes, or badmouthed her teachers no matter how awful their personalities were. Teachers tended to notice that she was so obedient and polite, but her classmates noticed it far more sharply.

When Ms. Fischer made her the third grade class monitor, even though Sakura was proud of the honor such a position gave, at the same time she knew all too well how her classmates would treat her. And they did do everything she feared, whispering insults and "teacher's pet" in earshot, stealing her lunch and dumping dirt in her food, never handing her the homework she was supposed to collect, dropping papers on the floor the days she handling the paper trash, or ambushing her when she was washing the blackboard.

She remembered those days clearly, even now. For years she had to deal with the bullying, and the only was she could convince herself to go to school in the morning was that she wanted to _learn_. But the fear, the shame, the self-hatred, the anger remained, and she still, in her heart, reserved a corner for Ino, for saving her from all that.

Despite the fact that she and Ino weren't as close as they used to be then, she still remembered so vividly Ino's smiling face as she tucked a flower behind Sakura's ear, and her soft pale hands that brushed against Sakura's cheek before they pulled away and rested on her own knees.

_"Show them what a pretty flower you are, Sakura…"_

For middle school Sakura went to a magnet program, guaranteed there a place by her extraordinarily high standardized-test grades. More than two years later, and she felt that Ino had become a completely different person than the simple, strong, stubborn girl of eight years.

In her place was a frivolous doll, Sakura thought with a touch of disdain, and took a sip of her soda to hide the bitter expression she felt twisting her face. Swallowing and setting it back down resolutely, she looked up.

"Eh?" Unexpectedly, Ino was staring intently at her, with her intense blue eyes. Sakura noticed that the glitter eye shadow complemented the almost greenish tint in them without being overdone.

"What is it?"

Ino shrugged, brushing her straight, glossy hair back over her bare shoulder with perfectly manicured pink nails.

"I was just thinking you need to get a boyfriend," she said, looking at Sakura from the corner of her eye and smirking.

Sakura's eyes widened, then she clamped her teeth down on her lip to suppress the angry words she felt wanting to come forth. Breathing deeply, she replied, "I don't need or want a boyfriend, Ino-pig."

"Forehead-girl, look. You're nearly fifteen, and everybody else your age has already lost their virginity, let alone had at least three boyfriends by now. I'm on my fifth!" Ino laughed, leaning her elbows on the table and bending her head closer conspiratorially.

Sakura noticed the cleavage that was exposed by Ino's slight bending over.

"Not everyone is so facetious, Ino."

Ino's breasts were smaller than her own, she thought. They were round and firm, and from this angle you could almost see—

"Well, at least I'm happy with myself," Ino said bitterly, leaning back again, curling a lock of hair around her finger.

"I-" Sakura looked up, angry at herself, at feeling aroused by her once-best friend's breasts, at letting herself almost let slip the truth, at the utter brainless values of her friend. She dug her fingers into the surface of the table, feeling her wrists shift into position, as if it were a piano and not a battered café table.

"I'm happy!"

Ino snorted, seemingly not realizing that Sakura had been staring at her boobs. "You mope over some violin dweeb—"

"—His name is Itachi Uchiha, and he's a an absolute _genius_—"

"It doesn't matter! He's still ugly! Besides, he's a celebrity, and there's no way you could get close to him. We live in Hicksville, remember? Get a grip and look around you! Lee still has a crush on you, you know."

Sakura drooped, her head tilting down and resting on the table surface. "Lee? I thought I told him that I didn't like him… He should have gotten over me, because I can't—"

"It's okay," Ino whispered, leaning in and patting Sakura's hair. With a muffled gasp, she felt the gentleness of Ino's hand against her hand, and a stab of loneliness overwhelmed her. She clenched her eyes shut.

Unbidden, images of Ino's smiling face came to her mind, and the curve of her breasts…

"You should try asking Lee out, though. He'll understand that you can't love him entirely, and I think it'll be good for you to hang out with a guy."

Sakura almost nodded. Lee was a good person, but…

"…I don't deserve him," Sakura mumbled, feeling shame rise up to her mind like awakening giants.

Sakura could feel Ino smirking in the air, even with her eyes shut. "Idiot. Of course you don't."


	4. Eye of the Storm

**Disclaimer:** See first chapter.

**A/N:** Old chapter that I wrote but thought needed editing, so I didn't put it up… and then I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought. Dedicated to my wonderful piano teacher, who gives me delicious coffee. XD (She's not as bad as this one, btw.)

* * *

**Eye of the Storm**:** To see beyond your own eyes into the future that never would.**

It was sunny today, so it took Sakura a moment for her eyes to adjust once she stepped into the darkened, murky house of her piano teacher. Irena was hobbling over to the living room, where directly in the center lay a black grand, the paint on its surface slightly old and cracked, but still loved.

She hesitated at the doorway, staring into the shadowed depths of Irena's home. There were velvet curtains partly obscuring the windows, and dust gripped their rich surface. The frail and pale light spilled over flower-patterned wallpaper and multitudes of mounted clippings and pictures, glinting occasionally off a gilt frame. The floor absorbed the light with the serenity of dark rugs.

Standing there, while the dust motes oscillated around her, the chill of the house pressing her to the warmth seeping through the nearby door, she didn't want to move. Sakura wanted to stand sentry over this vapid pocket of time, if only to live forever in Irena's vacuum and never have to worry about extraneous things.

"Wat are you doing zhere?" Irena prodded, her black-mantled bulk settling into a burgundy armchair by the Steinway. Her piano teacher had a thick Russian accent, which separated syllables into almost stringy segments. "Come!"

Sakura's knees gave way slightly, and she moved automatically to the side of the piano bench, laying her bag of worn books and sheet music on the floor. Walking in front of the bench to the center, careful to make sure that it was placed the approximate distance of her waist, she turned and sat down, smoothing a nonexistent skirt. Irena waited a moment, then muttered with irritation, "Arpeggio. G flat."

Sakura took a deep breath and set her fingers on the monotone keys, her wrists subtly twisting as she pressed harder to build up to a crescendo. As she began moving downwards again, Irena reached out and grabbed her hands, roughly pushing them to a more correct form.

"Again, now staccato! Relax elbows, and shoulder!" Sakura gritted her teeth and attempted to keep her control over her weakening fingers, trying to keep the tempo steady and press the correct keys.

"No! No! You keep fingers curled like pearls, each note bright diamonds, very sharp. _Don't_ let pinky go up!!" Irena snapped, jostling her elbows. Abruptly she moved out of her armchair and onto the bench, her arms jabbing into Sakura's side as she perfectly executed a G-flat arpeggio. Reaching out to grab Sakura's left hand, she placed it on her right one.

Looking sideways at Sakura, she said simply, "Feel." And then Sakura felt the tiny slick tendons and muscles move under the skin of her teacher as their touching hands flew up and down the piano keys, each individual motion contributing to the suddenly coherent notes.

But she couldn't focus on the familiar feeling, and instead looked at her teacher's wrinkled, weary face. Irena had once been a famous pianist, performing in front of thousands in dignified concert halls, but now she was a forgotten, lonely teacher in a dark house making surly teenagers play imperfect songs. Sakura wondered if her piano career would be similar, and she had the strangest, most perturbing conviction that it would, looking at her teacher's profile.

Discreetly, her eyes caressed the watery blue iris and wiry hair, the crumpled clutch of crowfeet.

Irena stood up, gathering her dress in one hand, and flitted around the bench and into the kitchen, calling out, "I bring coffee. Play Rachmaninoff prelude."

Sakura smiled waveringly, and took her hands off the piano, into her lap, quickly and deftly massaging them, before setting them again on the keys. Checking the position of the pedal, she leaned into her poised hands, readying for the first notes. Her eyes slid shut, for a moment, recalling the feeling of pulling and releasing that the song gave her.

She didn't need to play these songs from a book, though she had it in her bag. Sakura knew these by heart, for these were the songs that she planned to perform to get into Konoha. She stilled her breath and let her fingers strike the keys with the strength of a building storm, and tried not to dwell on what ifs and has beens.

Sakura felt a stirring energy inside herself waken with the first peels of thunder. Opening her eyes, she let the music begin to rain.


	5. sine qua non

**Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto, or the characters of Naruto. Nor am I making any profit out of writing and publishing this fanfic on the internet.

**This chapter**: Wherein I discover that if left unattended, this story goes in strange, unexpected directions. There were at least three different ways I almost could have written this, if I hadn't told myself things like, _no, celinae, you cannot suddenly crash your two main characters. And how can they be like three years underage and drive cars, anyway? DX;;; _

Btw, I have fallen in love with Itasaku, so this story may switch pairings in the future, but for now I have decided to continue in my current "direction." XD; Anyway, here's the chapter for your enjoyment! Please tell me what you think of it!

* * *

_sine qua non:_ Latin, lit. without which not: something essential; an indispensable condition.  
ritenuto means to slow down, in pianospeak, and is typically used at the end of a piece, to add a sense of conclusion (i.e. slowing to a stop).

* * *

**Sine Qua Non: The essential cyclical condition of hatred and acceptance**

"You won't want to miss this, I swear. _That__guy_ is having a party at his house, who knows why, and you'd kill me if I didn't bring you, so I will. And I promise it'll be worth it, and besides Kiba-kun is going to be there, and he's the hottest thing on the market now, ever since he grew his hair out," Ino tittered, braiding Sakura's hair, but Sakura tuned her out with the practice of over seven years.

She didn't know how she got suckered into going to another one of Ino's pointless parties. Except that she had been.

_It makes me wonder why I still hope, when of course I know that all that'll happen is that everyone will get drunk and/or stoned, and I'll just disappear in the corner and maybe even fall asleep from utter boredom like I did last time_, she ranted, staring at her made up face.

Sakura grimaced at herself in the mirror, and jumped when Ino finished tying off the braid and slipped her arms down to her shoulders, resting her chin lightly on top of Sakura's head.

"You look like a darling," she laughed, and then her arms loosened, leaving her ghostly imprint on Sakura's skin. She swallowed thickly and stared at Ino's retreating form.

"I do not! I look ridiculous, as I always do when you put some awful goop on my face!" Sakura huffed, rushing to catch up with Ino. Ino bent down to fish a purple metallic purse from underneath a blood-red skirt on the floor.

"Forehead-girl, stop the denial. I'm a magician with make-up, and you know it."

Sakura twitched, but didn't reply, tersely snatching her own peach-colored bag from the brilliant mess on the carpet. She checked to see that the paperback she tucked inside was still there, and froze when she didn't see the dog-eared burgundy volume.

"What happened to my Jane Austen?"

"Oh, you mean that dreary Old English courtship crap?" Ino drawled, dragging Sakura out of her room and out of her house.

"What happened to my Jane Austen?!"

Ino sighed. "I put it in my purse, okay?" She dangled the sequined contraption over her shoulder. "I'll give it to you once we get there, but it's too difficult to take it out now." Sakura twitched and snatched her wrist out of Ino's grip, but still followed Ino out of the foyer and into the balmy summer night. She didn't entirely believe her, but Ino sounded rather genuine for once, and the bag did seem to have a lot of things in it.

Outside, she lifted her face to the warm summer night, listening to the rustles of the stirring trees and the far-off highway, the drones of the cicadas.

Tonight—if she died tonight, what would change? Would her father care? Would Itachi know that somewhere she was dead, would Ino tell herself, she might have loved me and now _she's gone_—

Would the trees and the cicadas and the moon and the wind, and this seeping wet warmth, would these stop for her?

Sakura wanted to destroy her useless hope.

* * *

As usual, Sakura was bored. Like she had suspected, it turned out Ino _had_ misplaced her beloved copy of Mansfield Park, and had, in fact, left it under Sakura's bed.

She jiggled her foot a bit, but then stopped when she noticed that the chair she was sitting on was unsteady, and moving so quickly made it even wobblier. The usual horrible music blared loud enough to erase all possibility of meaningful communication, while the disturbingly red light in the house was very reminiscent of bloody horror flicks.

Sakura tried to ignore the similarities of the people gyrating in front of her to zombies, and instead focused on the drink she held in her hand. The beer was slightly foamy, and the cup chilly in her fingers, a welcome respite from the humid air of the house.

She frowned down at the alcohol, thinking of its chemical properties. Sakura had a good memory, and even though she didn't remember biology very well, despite having taken it last year, she still remembered that nearly all the other members of the alcohol family of organic molecules were extremely toxic. Lifting the cup to her nose and sniffing the pungent drink, she wondered what made ethanol different.

She wondered why people would use this to drown their troubles, and touched the edge of the cup to her lips, almost as if to take a sip, but then paused and lowered it again. The music pounded through her skull, the bass vibrating in the pit of her belly. Suddenly, she felt irritated at the vulgarity of it, and at how even though she came to the party, and dressed nice, no one bothered to talk to her. Nothing had changed, and she felt anger at herself for even thinking that it might.

Sakura stood up and threw away the cup, then, without a backwards glance at the red-lit frenzy behind her, stalked into the depths of the house.

* * *

Another bead of sweat trickled down her creased forehead, as Sakura went down the hallway. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, exactly. Maybe another sane person, or a distraction—at the worst, Sakura hoped she could find a book, or maybe a door to the outside. But it was a large house, unsurprisingly. (Ino would only bother going to a party if someone rich enough hosted it.)

Yet at the same time that meant that even though she had been walking for about seven minutes, she still didn't see anyone once she left the party, and the amount of time she had been wandering led Sakura to suspect that the building was nearly the size of a five-star hotel.

Periodic lamps lit the corridor, and Sakura could see by the dim light of the sporadic sconces that the carpet was a lush blue, and the paneling a rich orange-red wood. Most of the doors were locked, and while further into the house it was obvious that the rooms were empty of occupants, when Sakura first started walking along, she could hear the moans and noises of couples that had left the party for more privacy.

But most of the noises had faded after she rounded the first bend, and now it was nearly fifteen minutes into her journey and she knew she had not reached the other end of the house yet, even if she was walking rather slow. She could still hear the music from the party if she stopped and strained her ears, but at this distance you couldn't tell how crappy it truly was, which pleased Sakura.

The humid air from the party gradually chilled as time passed, and Sakura could smell dust and a faded scent of lemon cleaning fluid in the cool air, displacing the scent of sweaty bodies, alcohol, and smoke. She shivered, rubbing her hands on her bare arms, and almost cursed the fact that she left her blue sweater at home, at Ino's insistence. While it was true that the main room of the party had the climate of a tropical forest, she was wearing a rather flimsy brown tank top, and rather rapid change in temperature was making her feel a bit faint.

Finally, she spied a staircase at the end of the hallway, and eagerly climbed up it. Maybe she would find someone upstairs?

But the second floor was even quieter and darker than the first, and Sakura decided not to stop on that floor, but to continue on the staircase. The next, even creakier and narrower flight led up to an old door, which wasn't locked but was hard to open nonetheless, as the hinges had become rusty. Sakura winced at the screech as she finally pushed it open enough to let her through. Cautiously, she looked into the space between the door and the doorframe, and then entered inside.

She wondered if she was even allowed to be up here, in this shadowy, dank room. Spying a light switch on the wall beside the door, she flipped it on, and a small chandelier illuminated the area, which was rather plain compared to the rest of the house. It was obvious that it wasn't often used, as small cobwebs lay in the corners. Still, while it wasn't clean, it wasn't exactly choked with dust, either.

The back of the room was crowded with shelves and what seemed to be furniture wrapped in cloth or plastic. But the space before her was relatively empty, and against one wall was a grand piano.

Time seemed to slow, for a moment, though she didn't have a watch with her, and couldn't even tell how long it took for her to get up to the attic. But despite whatever she knew about the place and however long it took her to get here, all her worries and insecurities and thoughts faded with the sight of that piano. She hadn't realized it, but it was exactly what she was looking for.

Sakura drew near and ran her hand over the dusty keys, and then quickly pulled out the piano stool. Smoothing down her beige skirt, she sat down and balanced herself, straightening her back and relaxing her shoulders, her hands on her knees. She could feel her fingers beginning to sweat, a bit, and she dug her nails into the skin of her kneecap.

If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend she was in Irena's house with the musty darkness surrounding her. Except even now she could feel the frail light over her head, and a strange sense of purpose that almost made her dizzy with its intensity.

Because the house was so quiet, she was almost afraid that the sound of the keys would wake some evil spirit, but as she continued playing a few scales and arpeggios, she gradually grew more confident, enough that she knew she was ready to play her songs.

And then she was enveloped in the music, the chords that tore her heart, and she spoke with her fragile, flimsy notes.

_And it was true, she was nothing besides this, this music, this irresolute tendency to tear her life apart into chaotic, conflicting emotion._

Because Sakura had thought going to a party with Ino would have made a difference, but it didn't. She thought that by wearing a skimpy tank top and a short beige skirt she would get some attention, but nothing changed. Again, she was a wallflower; again she disappeared into the woodwork, even if she had done it almost of her own volition.

What was the use of dressing up and going to these stupid gatherings? Her world wouldn't change by drinking a beer or kissing a stranger. It would forever stay stagnant, and she would always, _always_ be bound by her useless feelings for others.

Endlessly, it came down to the fact that she used people to give her life meaning, to her belief that without making her heart break, she couldn't make other hearts break through her music. And that was all; she was quite simply, that pathetic. Even if she got into Konoha with the strength of this tainted, selfish talent, she would continue hoping that others would want her. They didn't.

She was forever stuck in her cycle of self-hatred and want and longing, and her fingers moved languorously across the keys, unconsciously in time with her bitter heart.

_and it is all my fault_

* * *

Just as she was playing the second-to-last chord in one piece, her limbs weighed with ritenuto, Sakura heard a small sound, almost like the creak of a stair. She quickly tensed at the sound, her fingers lifting off the keys and balling into a fist, as she abruptly remembered that she was in the attic of a strange home, in a strange area of the neighborhood that she had never been in before, and it was possible that whoever owned this house might object to the fact that Ino had even made her come with her in the first place.

She was screwed, unless the person was forgiving. But even if that person was going to make her pay some absurd amount, or claim she broke something, or sue her for trespassing, it didn't mean she should ignore him. Or her. She should _at least_ try to explain herself…

It didn't mean that she should freeze where she was sitting on the piano stool as if she were caught in the act of some crime.

Deep inside Sakura's mind, a small voice shouted, _JUST TURN AROUND AND FACE THE MUSIC, YOU COWARDLY BITCH!! _

And it was as if that small, irate voice turned off the numbing effect on her brain, because all of a sudden where there was once was white noise, there was a mumbled, panicked gibbering, and Sakura thought she was listening to a crazy person, except this wasn't on a subway, it was in her mind_. …vampires don't like people touching their things, or maybe since you did you sold your soul to him, and you'll have to pay in blood, and he'll eat you up, and maybe you'll be chained to the wall of some dank disgusting bloody stone room in his basement…_

But as soon as she finally twisted around to face a dark silhouette at the half-open doorway, the words ceased and the room, her mind, was calm.

_Craaaaaap!_

_Who is this, and how do I explain that I wasn't ignoring all decorum and moral decency by prancing around this house and playing on a piano I just happening to find in the attic?!_

* * *


	6. Bitter Melon

**Disclaimer**: All creative rights to the Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto; I am not getting any profit from this story.

**A/N**: Sorry it took forever (aka nearly a year)… I sort of lost interest, got distracted… Basically, life came back to bite me on the ass. And is still grinding my buttocks to a bloody paste. XD;;

It's getting a little plotsy and harder to write from now on, and I'm still not sure where I'm going with the rest of this, not to mention that my summer plans are as of yet still not finalized… So, yeah, the future of this fic is uncertain, but I hope you like what I've written regardless!

* * *

**Bitter Melon: The inevitable entropy of feeling and denial**

* * *

Sakura swung her feet, her hands clutching the rusty chains of the swing. Ino pushed her gently as Sakura's back came towards her, exhaling with the abrupt thrust. The breeze softly rustled their clothing, and Sakura tilted her head back to look at the peach-tinged clouds.

When she was clear of Ino, Sakura leaned fully back, her body nearly vertical. The view she caught of the sky made her chest ache—it was so big and wide, the clouds looked perfect and untouched so far up. It wasn't like anything human-made, that sky. It wasn't contrived, it wasn't dirty or tangled.

Just an expanse of blue turning peach by the setting rays of the sun. Just, just a _sky_.

Sakura pulled herself up to avoid butting her head into Ino's legs, and closed her eyes at the sensation of Ino's hands pressing into her back.

"Ne, Ino?"

"Yeah?" Ino shifted her focus from the motion of the swing to the back of Sakura's head. They had been there so long without any words that their voices sounded overly loud in the deserted playground. In the distance, the surrounding trees cast heavy, darkening shadows, and both of them pointedly ignored the oppressive growing dark. It was almost sunset, but Sakura didn't want to go back home.

With a quiet air of assurance, as if the thing she was about to tell her best friend was her deepest, darkest secret—as if the words she were about to say were the truth she felt at the core of her being, Sakura hesitated, and finally replied. "Do you think we'll end up like our parents?"

Ino, with her hands braced to push Sakura, stopped in shock. Sakura's back thumped against them before she pulled back, grasping the chain in her hands to keep it from moving. "I—"

"Because… Because I don't want to be like her," Sakura continued, her voice cracking almost imperceptibly. "I love her, she's my mom and she's there for me—" Sakura turned around, seeking Ino's eyes desperately. "But she's so _angry_, so bitter!"

Her anguished tone tore at Ino's heart, but before Ino could do or say anything to comfort her, she had turned back, her shoulders hunched over.

"I don't_… I don't…_ want to lose hope like that… I don't want to be so angry at everything that I can't even remember that I'm _here_. That, only once…"

Ino quickly came forward to wrap her arms around Sakura's torso. "You won't. You're one of the most optimistic, light-hearted people I've ever met," Ino said, sighing a soft laugh into her ear. Sakura smiled with Ino at her joking over exaggeration, though she doubted Ino's words were really true.

Deep down, she was just so grateful that Ino was there. That she didn't make fun of Sakura like all her other classmates did, that she didn't question her or tell her that one of her worst fears would come true. That she didn't mention the other parent, who had made her mother so bitter in the first place.

Sakura already knew, at the tender age of thirteen, that life wasn't sunshine or happiness. Even if you were happy, you never stayed that way, because inevitably your worst fears came true.

Sakura just hoped she could learn from all her fumbling, clumsy mistakes.

* * *

As a piano student, Sakura came to hate every composer she played. Mostly, it was because she was petty and enjoyed insulting certain characteristic difficult parts of her songs, as well as the composers who arranged them. But even though she came to hate (just a little bit, really), most of the composers she played, she detested Mozart most of all. Which was ironic, because most people had only ever heart of Mozart as the "classic piano composer," etc.

Sakura hated Mozart because most of his music was light and emotionless. There was a lot of this type of music that Sakura had played, from studies and finger exercises to sonatas, but instinctively, she couldn't understand it. Yes, it was pretty, but it wasn't _music_ the way Chopin or Beethoven or Rachmaninoff was music. There was something superficial and mechanic about Mozart, even among some of his most well-known and vibrant songs.

While ordinarily, if she hated Joplin, for example (which did, for much the same reason as Mozart), she could just avoid frustration by ignoring his songs. But she couldn't do that to _Mozart_. She had to master some of his music, simply because her level of skill demanded such mastery.

But just because she didn't like Mozart's music didn't mean she wouldn't be insanely jealous of the boy who started playing one of his sonatas with perfect technique and a very, very fast speed.

Subtly, a vein started to twitch on Sakura's forehead. He was such a phony, if that pathetically "emo" glare he just cast in her direction was anything to go by. The petulant scowl made him look immature instead of sophisticated, which was what Sakura figured he was trying to go by. If she didn't think he was her age, she would definitely say he was younger, just by his actions.

Though there was something to be said for being let off of trespassing with little more than a couple of glares and a rendition of Mozart that almost made her green with envy. But as much as his playing impressed Sakura, she didn't really care about expressing her admiration.

Sakura knew the little twit would preen if she said anything, anyway, so she turned and started to walk out, but was stopped by a pale hand on her bare forearms.

_I must remember that I am a guest, I must remember that I came upstairs uninvited…_

"Yes?" She twisted a little, trying to step out of his reach.

"Don't you have anything to say?" the boy said, sneering. The smirk on his face and his upturned chin made her want to pound him into the ground so hard. It was really a pity she didn't have enough strength to do so.

"Do you really want to hear it?" she said, instead, turning to face him fully. At her slightly venomous words he shrank back, but then regained his seemingly unlimited confidence and puffed his chest.

"What's the worst you can say, old hag?"

She was tired of him, of parties, of stupidly useless feelings. If his smirk hadn't been there, just demanding to be destroyed, she would have told him she thought he was pretty good.

But it was there, and she_ wanted_ so much that she couldn't ever do or have. She told the truth.

"There was no emotion in it."

And as much of the truth as she could lie: "It was utterly uninspiring."

Sakura walked out the door and down the steps, not even vindicated by the unknown boy's shocked expression.

* * *

It took a while to find her way back, but once she was there she noticed that everyone only looked more wasted than when she left. The room didn't seem like it could get any more casually destructed than it already was; drinks spilled everywhere, chairs dragged to different corners of the room, a table randomly flipped over, crushed cans and red cups littering the floor. One of the windows was broken, with the chilly night air flowing in the humid room.

She found Ino on one of the sofas, sucking face with someone Sakura had never seen before. The slightly older boy had taken off Ino's flimsy camisole and was roughly fondling her breasts through her bra, but Ino didn't seem to care, as she too was groping him. She didn't seem to notice her best friend standing only one foot away, too involved with a stranger to care, and oddly enough Sakura felt her vision becoming slightly blurry at the thought.

But she stayed there, staring at Ino's flushed face and listening to her moans and gasps. Her eyes felt hot and wet but she looked at her friend, a beautiful blond girl with blue eyes, a kind heart, and huge boobs, and wanted. And finally, looking at her, she realized that there was a word for what she felt. Maybe it wasn't the right word--the connotations didn't match up completely, and she had always thought it would feel less twisted and possessive and desperate--but it was close enough. She turned and walked away into the crowd, not daring to look back.

Sakura was thirteen, but that didn't make realizing she loved a girl any easier.

* * *


	7. Pools of Sorrow

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is owned by Kishimoto, and I do not claim rights to it, nor am I making any money off of writing this fanfic.

**A/N: **There's some pretty explicit stuff going on in this chapter. Don't say I didn't warn you.

One of the most vivid scenes that I remember from watching the End of Evangelion is when Shinji visits Asuka in the hospital and jerks off while she's lying in a coma, and afterwards cries a bit… it was an amazingly powerful scene, one that really resounded with my own feelings as a teenager. I can't very definitively describe it… that sense of confusion, of self-hatred, of disquiet, of shame… but I think that this feeling is at the core of what I want to convey with this story—the painful process of growing up.

I've had a bit of trouble making what I've been writing fit into the tone of the story, which explains that despite thinking about the plot on and off for the past month, I wasn't able to progress very far with this chapter initially.

The chapter title, people may notice, is a pun on both the Beatles song Across the Universe and Little Red Riding Hood.

* * *

_"Nothing of him that doth fade  
But doth suffer a sea-change  
Into something rich and strange."_

-Shakespeare, The Tempest

* * *

**Pools of Sorrow: The Better to See the Winds of Change**

o

o

She walked the rest of the way back to Ino's house alone. The rustle of leaves and the shifting, darting shadows put her on edge but she found that she couldn't think about them too long. There was a thick ache in her chest that made it hard to breathe deeply, and she felt almost feverish, despite the chilly night.

Sakura knew that it shouldn't be so much of a surprise to realize that she loved Ino. She had always been aware of her, then and now: so ridiculously happy when the prettiest girl in her class first stood up for her, nervous during gym when they had to change in the locker room. The few times Ino had done Sakura's hair, she remembered feeling tingly, curls of nervous arousal with the occasional brush of hands against her forehead or neck.

There was gratefulness, longing, and shame. Sakura shouldn't feel or think such things about her best friend, but she did. She _wanted_ Ino, not just because she was so nice and kind despite her prickly and slightly facetious exterior.

But she knew that Ino liked boys. There was no getting around that fact, and even if she did Sakura couldn't bear the thought of being openly—homosexual—around people who barely accepted her as she already was.

Once she reached Ino's house, she walked around to the back, lifting the key from under the old welcome mat where it was hidden. Quietly, she crept up to Ino's room, hoping that her parents were asleep. She changed into her pajamas and set her watch alarm for an early hour.

She woke before her alarm, when Ino tripped over Sakura's outstretched ankles as she fumbled her way to her bed, tripping over Sakura's outstretched legs. Landing heavily on her comforter, Ino struggled a bit with her clothing and the sheets and apparently passed out a few minutes later.

Sakura blearily rubbed her eyes and checked the clock, trying not to focus too much on the person less than three feet away from her. But somehow that sprawled form seemed to loom over the entire room, and dragged her attention to it. She was aware on every inch of her skin of Ino's presence—a clotted, seeping ache awakened by the soft breaths and the scent of sweet flowers, alcohol, and sweat. She _wanted_…

Sakura gave in to temptation and crawled closer to the slumbering Ino. The moonlight shone softly on her friend's blond hair and sweaty, pale skin. What she could see of her face seemed angelic, but the arrangement of her body was anything but. For one, the clothes she wore were barely on—her skirt was caught around her bent knees, and her bra was unhooked, the straps falling off of her shoulders.

Sakura's arms burned with phantom touches, her breathing unsteady. Even though she was so close now, only inches away, Sakura could feel the distance between them grow exponentially with each second. As intense her feelings might be, there was no chance for her, and she repeated this in her head like a mantra.

Sakura almost started reaching out her hand, her fingers quivering, but she scooted further away and turned on her side. But her pretty face and skin, the shining blond hair, the perfect limbs, they lingered in her mind's vision, and as much as she tried to force them out with other thoughts, they remained.

And then, to Sakura's horror, Ino moaned in her sleep.

It was soft, and in the middle Ino's voice cracked, but the notes shot straight from Ino's pink lips to Sakura's core. She stiffened her spine, and pressed her sweating hands flat against the sheets, but when she looked over her shoulder her mouth dried, for her gaze had fixated on Ino's suddenly visible breast, the nipple barely distinguishable in the dark, and her long, lean legs.

The battle was lost, right then, for Sakura's hand slid under the stretchy waistband of her pajama bottoms and down her stomach, to cup over the curve of her body. She _wanted_ to—, and closing her eyes only made it easier to imagine that it was _her _fingers touching her, stroking her. Each gentle swipe seemed to increase the mixture of shame and arousal she felt.

She drew her hand out, stared at the wet shine on her fingertips, rubbed her fingers together. Choked on a sob.

* * *

In the morning Sakura picked up her things silently and fled without eating breakfast. She tried not to look at Ino while she was gathering her clothes, but as she stepped out of the room she glanced over her shoulder once more.

Her face crumpled, just a bit—a slight grimace, squinting eyes—but that was all the emotion she let show. In her relationship with Ino, there was no more room for her extraneous, choking, inconvenient emotions. She let herself have this moment to mourn her useless love and foolish heart, to recall her brief terrible fantasies; but after this, she told herself, she would lock her hopes away.

Her parents were both gone when she went home, which she expected, but she didn't expect how silent the house was with them gone. She couldn't stay there any more than she could stay by Ino's side, so she started walking.

There were things that she had tried to deny for so long, bubbling out of solution and leaving their vivid tracks of thoughts across her mind. She wanted to tell them to someone, but there was no one she trusted enough, no one who wouldn't start treating her differently as a result of her revelations.

To tell the truth, she was scared. She was… she was bisexual, but to her family and friends, anything other than tradition was viewed with suspicion and often hatred. Sakura had a hard enough time growing up with her own exotic looks, and she couldn't imagine what kind of treatment she'd get from her classmates if they knew the truth.

She walked down the block and down Main Street, until she was in another part of the neighborhood that she didn't recognize. The houses were shoddier—plastic paneling instead of bricks, asphalt roof tiles instead of heavy slate or clay. She passed by more and more ninety-nine cent stores and cramped delis selling cigarettes, soda, and candy bars.

And finally, she found it. It was a small slightly dingy diner, but Sakura saw people inside it, at least. The smell of grease, bread, and coffee out on the sidewalk made her mouth water.

As soon as she opened the door, she felt it—a small shiver down her spine, an old, distant feeling of acceptance—something she hadn't felt in years. She paused, holding the edge of the door in her hands…

* * *

There are some places that make one feel as if they've come home. Sometimes, it's an exposed boulder in the middle of a mountain stream. For some, it's sitting next to friends around a campfire roasting marshmallows, or lounging in a favorite nook in an old and familiar library.

There's a sense of belonging and contentment—a moment where your surroundings come together into a glorious whole—a feeling of being sheltered from the troubles and stresses of the world.

Sakura found her home on the threshold of the Sannin Diner.

At that moment, she had no idea how much her life would change just by the simple act of stepping inside.


	8. Aftertaste

**Disclaimer:** Naruto is owned by Kishimoto, and I do not claim rights to it, nor am I making any money off of writing this fanfic.

**A/N: **Haha, it's been awhile hasn't it? For those who don't know, I'm in college now. Yay! It's crazy and busy and I'm learning a lot, not only about old Greek farts but about the laws of the universe and all that... as well as how much I fail at social interaction. Anyway, I started writing something rather random and skippy-aheady because I knew I would never get around to actually doing what I had intended to do with the rest of this chapter (namely, introduce a character or two that are sort of important). And also because I _did_ state at the beginning that this story would be somewhat of a oneshot-series. Of course, I will try to put down some of the material I had originally written. I'm just intentionally skipping around (though that's more because I'm lazy and crazy). So have fun guessing! Eheh.

Also I'd like to put it out there that the main reason why I suddenly included a diner in this story was because I am a foodie at heart. And I that, about a year and a half ago, I felt like writing about pancakes. XD;

* * *

**Aftertaste: The lingering distortion of memory**

* * *

Thoughts clustered in her head unwillingly, and as she stared at the menu she could feel a headache coming on, a stifling ache making each pestering worry throb. Her eyes floated past the breakfast and lunch choices, landing somewhere between the wilderness of salads and soups before she came back to herself. She couldn't concentrate, not just because she was tired, a night of fitful sleep interrupting her coherence, but because above the clatter and hisses coming from the kitchen, and the gentle buzz of conversation, she could barely hear music.

After she listened to it for a minute, the player made a mistake, restarted the song, and the notes sound familiar. She was sure she could figure it out, but the waitress who dropped the menu on the table and poured her some coffee, earlier, stood in front of her table, her pen poised over a small pad of paper.

"So, have you decided yet?"

"Uhm, excuse me?" For some reason, the song reminded her of rain…

"Your order?"

"Oh," Sakura said, looking back down at the menu. But she wasn't any closer to figuring out what to eat, so she asked the waitress for a little more time, blushing slightly.

As she contemplated the hash browns she remembered the song, and her grasp on the menu slipped, the plastic sliding through her loosened hands. Liebestraume, by Lizst, and her mind flicks back to the opening lines, the melody: E flat, C, C, C, her fingers on the table, following along with the dim twinkle of music in the air. It's a beautiful song, she thought, and laid her head down on her folded arms, her cheek against the bare skin of her wrist. Involuntarily she started twirling her hair in the fingers of one hand, feeling the heavy, smooth texture of her pink-colored strands of hair.

The English translation of Liebestraume was "dreams of love," she suddenly remembered. And with this thought, the feelings she had been pushing back all morning resurged. Her hand drooped, she sighed—in her despondence, her surroundings fade; they became only a dim background to her inner turmoil.

She wanted many things, but most of all, at this moment, she wanted to sit at a piano and play the saddest song she could think of. Satie's 1st Gymnopedie, or Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, or perhaps that one prelude of Chopin… something despondent, quiet, simple but each note quivering, like a distant star.

A clatter jolted her to alertness, as a plate laden with something golden and warm slid across the table. She hadn't ordered anything yet, though, so she looked up, confused and irritated.

"I'm sorry, but you must have made a mistake," she said, raising her voice as the man starts to walk away.

He wore a stained, yellowing apron over his dark pants and pale gray shirt. A black bandanna partially covered his face, and his long silvery hair flopped and twisted unrestrained on his head. When he turned around she immediately noticed the satiny black eyepatch and the sharp scar extending from under it. Sakura smiled uncertainly as he scrutinized her with a dark, unreadable gaze.

"I didn't order anything yet," she said, her confidence still sailing forward despite the lack of wind that his unnerving gaze had erased. She pushed the heavy plate towards him.

"Oh, that," he said, and walked away. "It's yours."

"Wait—" Sakura bursts out, getting annoyed, but the man was already disappearing into the entrance to the diner's kitchen. She stares after him for some time, but only some metallic tabletops are visible from her seat, and so she transfers her irate glaring to the food the odd man had left behind.

It proved to be her undoing, however. The mound of golden warmth smelled divine, weakening her resolve, and when she prodded the mass with her fork, wounding it a little, chocolate oozed from the bruised flesh.

"I just hope this isn't too expensive," she wondered guiltily, but all her thought processes are interrupted once she put that first forkful in her mouth.

The first thing she could think, or feel, after that initial sensation of bliss, was that it tasted exactly what it looked like. "Golden." The perfect layering of savory pancake, soft and chewy inside, with a slight crisp, from frying, on the outside. The gooey, melted chocolate, lingering as an aftertaste, its sweet bitterness complimenting the slightly bland batter.

Would it be an understatement to say that she never tasted anything as amazing as that pancake? Nothing certainly eclipsed it, although many things came close. Looking back, Sakura could name a handful of dishes that had affected her so much she came close to crying. One was a certain humble chocolate cake... but no, she was getting ahead of herself.

Three years later, it was still the only dish she could think about; the only dish that really encompassed everything she missed as home. She missed their golden taste on her tongue with their warmth and the full, sweet, spongy texture of the dough interspersed with gooey chocolate. She missed how she would pour syrup on the cakes until they were nearly saturated and how when she would put her nose right up against them they would smell like butter and caramelized sugar.

She missed how easy it was, to sit at the corner booth of the Sannin Diner and watch Shizune waltz around with her coffee pot and her little notebook. She missed, most of all, that one moment of zen when she was smelling the steam coming off of the pancakes, the first bite melting into her mouth like sunshine.

'You know, maybe I missed my calling, that day I ate that pancake,' she wondered.

Sakura's regretful daydreams were abruptly halted by a thwack to the side of her head. She cried out in pain, looking balefully at her teacher and his _evil_ paper fan.

"Oh, yeah, it's just a training method, he said," she muttered. "A more accurate way of calling it would be _torture_."

"What was that?" her teacher asked, looking at her. Sakura shrank away at the promised pain in his eyes and replied, "Oh, nothing!" He cleared his throat, then brandished his fan in the direction of the score and said, "Again! But this time, with focus. And I want you to—just play better here. Now, start!"

And he began thwacking his fan against the side of the piano, and when Sakura had still not started playing he began thwacking his fan against her head.

Sakura whimpered and told herself for the hundredth time that after today she would run away and join the culinary academy across the street.

* * *

Later that night Sakura sat in front of her designated practice piano, tinkering a little miserably at the keys. The middle part of the piece she was currently playing was taking a while to perfect. Her bruises from the lesson earlier were worse than normal, and it was just another problem on top of the paper she had to write for her History of Romantic Music class. She had chosen to write about Russian composers, and while normally she was overjoyed to research her favorite music, it was just one thing on top of the suite of fugues she had to memorize by the next week and the school's annual concert coming up in a month—she was still unable to keep a consistent tempo for the piece she was supposed to play, and her notes in several spots were uneven—and the fact that she simply missed home.

It hadn't hit Sakura earlier. It was almost three months into her first year at Konoha Academy, and while she was having the time of her life... she missed home. Sakura knew she was more independent than most people, a hard worker and a introvert by nature. But the plywood exterior of her little closet-like room was a shabby replacement for the worn room with her plushies and her warm blankets. In that room, she had spent the past fourteen years of her angst-ridden life, but here was this imposed personality on a used, bland room--

She missed Ino, she thought to herself, and it was a small thought but it echoed across her whole soul.

And of course she also missed her mother, soft and gentle, and she missed her mom's simple but comforting food. Perhaps most of all, she missed the Sannin Diner and the warm acceptance she had found there.

But at least she had music. Sakura hesitated and then tossed down the yellow book of fugues. Satie's Gymnopedie No 1 was what she felt like, so she played it, sniffling a little bit every time she had to press the A note.

Near the end, she heard the door creaking behind her and she froze, the notes dying in the air.

"Don't mind me," her teacher said, and Sakura felt like laughing because whenever anybody said that to her she only became more nervous. But she started from the beginning anyway and she tried to stop herself from humming this time. The practice room was small and she could almost feel the body heat radiating from her scruffy-haired teacher as he sat behind her, his knees brushing up against the bench.

And in the middle she almost paused in her playing because she thought she heard the soft sound of his voice harmonizing. So maybe he too knew what it was like to miss home; she hoped he did, because the Sannin Diner was like a second home to her as well.

* * *

About six weeks into the fall semester Sakura found out (entirely by accident) that her teacher also taught two other students piano.

It was the day after she handed in the twelve-page paper for her History of Romantic Music class, and she felt restlessly stressed. Her eyes hurt and her face felt greasy and stiff, and all she wanted to do was take a steamy-hot shower and curl up in bed with a bar of chocolate and watch a sappy movie on her computer. But before that, she had resolved to return the books she had used to the library, so she didn't have to look at them anymore. They were crowding up her already tiny room—just another reminder of the heaps of work she had done and still had yet to do.... And she didn't want to be reminded, at least at that moment.

(It also felt extremely, almost childishly satisfying to toss them down the book slot and hear the heavy thunk they made at the bottom. Sakura loved books, but not when they were old and rambly and she had to write another three pages before class and she couldn't find that one paragraph she had read that she knew would just make her paper's argument watertight.)

She mechanically started walking back from the library, and then a stray idea came to her. She hesitated, and then abruptly turned around and went down the stairs, to the basement of the building. The furnishings were older here, and well-used—for this area was the floor of practice rooms, one for each of the forty-four budding musicians. Despite the soundproofing in every room, as you walked down the hallway you could still hear strains of music.

Sakura strolled down, feeling the bold chords of jazz and the gentle twinkle of classical composers, and the music felt like warm water over her, relaxing and comforting. She almost wanted to go to her room and practice some music, but she wanted to take a shower so badly (and not even the music really helped her feel cleaner). But she thought she might check her room, and almost blindly turned and barged into what she thought was her door.

Except she must have been wrong, because instead of being empty as usual, her teacher was in there with another student, a dark-haired boy who was oddly familiar. The boy was a song that she knew she had played once, a song by Chopin? There were some odd trills in it that she remembered having trouble with... But she couldn't remember the name, because both occupants turned to look at her in an accusatory manner, and before her teacher could reprimand her Sakura said in a painfully squeaky voice, "I-I'm sorry!" and shut the door.

It turned out that the room was actually the one next to hers. She studied the name plate and wondered why it sounded so familiar to her.

"Sasuke Uchiha..."

Sakura remembered, vaguely, a party at a huge mansion with a piano in the attic, and a pompous boy that had similar eyes to the one in the room. In fact, his style of playing, from the couple of seconds she had heard before he turned around, was very similar to that of the jerk's. Stilted, mechanical.

In any case, the peace she had just attained was rudely torn away from her. Right then, she just wanted to go to a corner somewhere and curl up with a blanket and a bar of chocolate, but she remembered the work she still had to do. A thick sheaf of readings to go through for her History of Romantic Music class, assigned that very day to finish for the next. A problem set for calculus to finish. A stack of dirty dishes to wash. Sixteen pages of exercises for piano to memorize and practice until perfect.

Sakura sighed deeply and trudged on.

* * *

By the time Sakura collapsed in bed it was a few hours before morning. She wasn't even really done with all the work she had to do—the dishes still had old food caked on them, and her problem set was half done—but she was so _tired, _she didn't have the strength or will to keep focus. Sakura stumbled into her pajamas, feeling miserable even as she curled into her comforter. She felt ironically more awake than she had been a moment ago, and then—

She's sitting on a train. She doesn't know where it's going, it's speeding fast going anywhere. Nowhere. She's clutching a heavy bag. The train is shaking sideways, back and forth, with a rhythmic clatter that feels like her heartbeat. She breathes in and out, closes her eyes and opens them. Even if she wanted to, she wouldn't be able to say where she is. And yet, instead of worrying her, she feels strangely liberated. It's almost as if she's free falling through space, but she's the one who's thrown herself off that ledge. She's had years to accept this freedom, to recognize it for what it really is, not what it appears to be.

When she was younger, Sakura couldn't think past the horror of it, the tragedy and sorrow of deciding to throw the rest of your life away. But now she knows better. She hasn't been in a situation where she would want to do that—but she knows, given the right incentives, what her decision would be. She knows what a liberation it could be.

And she knows before she turns her head that there will be someone next to her, looking at her. She feels the warmth and heaviness of the person against her as they sway in the train's current. She swallows, and still turned away, she slowly stretches her hand out, feeling a knee and a thigh before meeting a warm hand that carefully holds hers.

—she woke up with tears in her eyes.


End file.
